Last week’s episode of The Giftedwas a good start, and introduced us to the world of the mutants. This week looks at the aftermath of the escape last week, and the repercussions of the Strucker’s actions.

With Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer) in the hands of the Sentinel Services they start to apply pressure to make him talk. His family now with the Mutant Network, Kate (Amy Acker) finds herself working with Eclipse (Sean Teale) to help Blink (Jamie Chung). Last week I felt things were a little rushed and Reed and Kate didn’t get much time as characters to connect with the audience. Thankfully this week there is more of a focus on them, including a flashback to a mutant event which showed their feeling on the mutant community.

This is noticed by their daughter Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) who at that time had her powers but hid them from her family. Now things are much different of course with the revelation that her and her brother Andy (Percy Hynes White) both have powers. The fact that last week Andy showed just how powerful he was, is replicated this week but with Lauren instead. There is an emphasis on the fact that they have impressive powers, which is something that the government are starting to show interest in. It seems that three is a precedent for powerful brother and sister mutant teams.

This week in The Giftedwe also get hints as to what happened with the mutants, especially the X-Men and Brotherhood. It seems that there was an event that not only had a huge effect on the mutants, but also took many human lives. Sentinel Services Jace Turner (Coby Bell) made it clear to Reed that this is why he is so against mutants, and wants to take out the Mutant Network.

One thing that is pushed a lot this episode is the theme of prejudice. Not only do we see this with the Sentinel Services, but also in the prison where Polaris (Emma Dumont) is being held. That focus on emphasising the prejudice against the mutants taps into real-life terrorism. Not all mutants should be blamed for whatever occurred in the ‘incident’ but it appears that they are.

Polaris’ experiences in jail may not be the highlight of the episode, but they work well to keep her character in the minds of the audience. No doubt we’ll see an escape bid in the future, but it looks like right now we’ll be seeing just how bad life can get for her. Impressively, Dumont makes is using what scenes she has to really make her character interesting for the audience, and we find ourselves hoping she can remain strong in what seems to be an impossible situation.

I enjoyed this week’s episode of The Gifted more than last week, because the show really gets the chance to slow down a little and push the Strucker family more. It also provides the audience with details of exactly why there is so much prejudice against mutants, and why they are having to fight to be a part of community. It seems that all the work that the X-Men did to try to show the good of the mutants has been ruined by one event.

Looking at where this week’s episode leads The Gifted, it is heading in a good direction. The main characters (including the Strucker family) are taking centre stage, and an interesting story is being built up around Lauren and Andy. Just what makes them so special though is yet to be seen.